Co-browsing (also referred to herein as “collaboration”) among two or more users in an Internet or World Wide Web environment using proxy servers or shared web pages is known in the art. FIG. 1 illustrates an embodiment of a prior-art co-browsing system 100 that facilitates co-browsing between a customer service representative (“CSR”) of a corporation and a customer of the corporation. The customer, using browser 110, and the CSR, using CSR browser 120, co-browse to a proxy server 130, which then in turn browses a website 140 served by a web server (not illustrated). The co-browsing users (the customer and the CSR) do not co-browse the actual website 140 but instead co-browse to proxy server 130.
Proxy server 130 receives browser messages from either customer browser 110 or CSR browser 120, passes them through to the web server serving website 140, intercepts results originating from the web server, and passes the results (possibly after modification) to each of browsers 110 and 120. The use of a co-browsed proxy server 130 allows vendors to introduce code on proxy server 130 that allows messages and hypertext markup language (“HTML”) pages to be sent back and forth between browsers 110 and 120. Proxy server 130 may also add proprietary code, such as Java applets or plug-ins (such as Flash), to each of browsers 110 and 120.
In some customer service environments, such as in a financial services environment, it may be beneficial for the CSR to have information available to him or her that is different from information that is made available to the customer. Additionally, certain environments may provide different types of information to different CSRs depending upon the level or training of the CSR. Co-browsing systems, such as system 100, that make use of proxy servers are not sufficient to meet the above-noted needs.